


The Sacrifice

by failsafe



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s02e20 The Crossroads of Destiny, Gen, Multi, Palace Intrigue, Prisoner of War, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-23 22:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11998902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: In the final moments of the fall of Ba Sing Se, Katara makes a fateful decision which leaves her at the mercy of the new regime.





	The Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/gifts).



> In "The Crossroads of Destiny," we do not quite see how Katara and Aang escape. We only know that Iroh helped cover Katara fleeing with Aang from the catacombs and that they ended up on Appa's back. Taking this opportunity to have canon shake up a bit, this is where we join our story. I'm so excited to have written this story; it's something that was a vague shape in my mind for a long time and having the opportunity to write it for you in a way I sincerely hope you'll find pleasing was a push I needed. I feel that I could go on with this particular canon divergence for a full novel length, but given the constraints of time and the obligations of an exchange, I have given you what I hope is a satisfying picture of what could have been.

Aang's body is damp and warm, sweat and water covering him. There is probably some blood, too, but Katara tries not to think too much about that. He is smaller than her still, but heavier than when they met. She carries him because she has to, but it's not easy and too much distraction might make her muscles stop cooperating.

Her mind is swimming, no matter how much she tries simply putting one foot in front of the other. In the catacombs, she had learned things about Zuko in the space of an hour that she would never have dreamed. She had felt compassion for him. She had touched him, offered to try and help him. And now this. She can't imagine what could have made her be so stupid.

The fact that Zuko's uncle, who had always been so unflinchingly loyal to him, had helped her escape with Aang also weighs on her mind. She doesn't know which parts of it matter or if any of them do. Aang isn't breathing, but he is still warm.

In the glow of a city, half-oblivious to its own captivity, and moonlight that seems more cold than comfort now, Katara sees shadows move as she manages to get Aang above ground and outside. Some of them are narrow, sharp shapes while others are round, solid versions of themselves. Everything seems to be an incorrect, nightmare image of a world that, just days ago, Katara had known.

She does not know where she is going, only that she can't stay here. She keeps moving until one particularly large, round shadow passes over her, darker than a cloud, almost blinding her in darkness for a moment. Looking upward, she knows exactly what she is seeing and breathes a sigh of relief. Whatever twisted shape everything else had taken, Appa looked the same. Then, she looks down to her side and sees the slack, expressionless features of Aang's face. This isn't like sleep; it's much worse and she knows it. When she stops to allow Appa to fly over and find room to swoop down to get them, her breath tightens in her chest, relief replaced by guilt.

Not moving, she is able to shift Aang's weight to one arm for a moment. She reaches up to clasp the ornate vial around her neck, to assure herself that it is still there. Her eyes close as she feels the displacement of air as Appa comes down as quickly as he can with the others on his back. Her brother and Toph – along with the Earth King and his pet bear – are there. She feels her eyes start stinging again, because she is so close to something like safety, but Aang can't move, can't hold himself up, can't airbend, can't do anything at all. The grassy scent – the most pleasant note in Appa's smell – blows into her nostrils and makes her remember the sound of Aang's laugh and the optimism they had all shared.

“How could I be so stupid?” she asks herself aloud when she lets herself make a sound. She knows the others wouldn't like to hear her say it, but who else is there to blame? How could everything have gone so wrong?

“Katara!” her brother's familiar voice breaks in her direction. She knows from the sound of her name alone that he can't decide what to feel either. As soon as Appa is low enough, Sokka's feet clamor to the ground and he stumbles toward them both. “... He—” Sokka starts a sentence when his hand falls on Aang's lean, limp arm.

“I think he's dead,” Katara confesses in a voice that presses even closer to sobs, to breaking, but she can't give up yet.

“I... I don't feel—” Toph murmurs, then stops herself when she and Appa have found solid ground. It sounds as if she had tried to reach out, tried to somehow feel some subtle sign of life, but when her feet touch the flat expanse of rooftop, she goes completely still.

“How—” Sokka asks, as if it might somehow let him know how to _fix it_ , what to do.

Katara appreciates what he is trying to do and almost wants to let him try. Another part of her wants to snap and shout at him – that he can't _fix this_ , that Aang is _dead_ and there is nothing any of them can do anymore. All hope is lost, and even if the Avatar was reborn into the Water Tribe in the next moment, it wouldn't make a difference, because summer is nearly here and what are they going to do with a baby?

Instead of following how she feels in either direction, she recounts what happened to him.

“He was going into the Avatar State,” she says, dutifully, “and Azula electrocuted him. Lightning. Entered his back and exited his foot,” she explains.

“That—” Toph is ready to curse Azula, but then she stops. “... Guys, we're not... alone here,” she says, tightening her voice down into a sharp whisper.

Sokka turns, his back nearly touching Toph's as he squints, looks around, and breathes in the air around them. He reaches up and is about to take hold of his boomerang. Katara feels her heart skip a beat. She can't let this happen, and her mind immediately supplies a tactical excuse.

“Sokka,” she calls to him tersely. “Here,” she says. “Take him. Get him to Appa. I've carried and pulled him all the way here. Besides, they're benders, and you can't—” she reasons with him, quickly, trying to get him to take Aang back to the relative safety of Appa's back.

“I can take on as many benders as you want,” Sokka argues, anger shining through gritted teeth.

“Sokka!” Katara snaps, sharp enough to take his attention and bring it to her eyes. He takes a visible breath and relents, letting her transfer Aang's weight into his arms.

“I've got you,” he says with rare, gentle tenderness as he hauls Aang up onto Appa's back.

It sends a chill up Katara's spine, to imagine that they are caring for Aang's body and his body alone. She swallows, but she hardly has time to sink that much further into grief before she sees the black and faintly green shapes emerge from the shadowy corners all around them.

“What are they? They're everywhere,” Toph explains, reporting and asking with equal urgency.

“Dai Li,” Katara explains.

“Come on, girls! Let's go, let's go,” Sokka urges them, barely restraining himself. Only Aang's weight against his chest and the effort to balance on Appa's back seems to restrain him from jumping back down to force the issue.

“Yes, please,” the Earth King remarks, and Katara has to swallow down any bitter, accusing response she might have given him. There isn't time.

“Earthbenders? Hurt Aang?” Toph asks, punctuated fury underlying her tone. “I'll take care of them!”

Before anyone has time to respond, parts of the building itself are displaced. There are a few discordant, scattered men's screams, getting further and further away before they stop.

They aren't all gone, though. There are more still coming.

“Let's go, let's go,” Katara says, reaching out for Toph's shoulder and trying to anchor and then push her toward Appa. She steers her in the right direction, reducing the feedback down to something Toph can trust because the Dai Li and brick and stone are all approaching in strategic waves.

“I could kill every last one of them!” Toph insists, even as she moves the way she is directed, anger only getting more and more intense with each word.

“We have to get him out of here if there's any hope at all,” Katara insists, taking a breath and finding a solemnity in her voice that seems to touch Toph's mind.

“Hope?” she asks, pausing as her hands touch into Appa's hair and find a steady grasp that won't hurt the sky bison.

“I've got the only thing that might be,” Katara says, touching over the vial that is tied around her neck; then she remembers abruptly that Toph cannot see her do so. “Water with special healing properties from the Northern Water Tribe,” she says, quickly. “Now go,” she says, reaching out to Toph's sides to help steady her and move her along more quickly.

She is about to follow when Toph has reached Sokka and taken hold of his arm just enough to steady herself. She is about to take the vial to Aang and hope against hope that it can heal even this if she tries hard enough. She is about to finally be able to breathe, be able to cry, when she hears the low, deep rumble of Appa responding to pain. She hears a volley of stones, pummeling the animal and threatening her friends – her family – and the Earth King and his innocent bear. She sees the way Appa tries to stay planted where he is, to wait for her. She sees the small blossom of red on white at Appa's temple. He's hurt. It's not badly, not yet, but she glances upward and knows that if they wait much longer, it will be too late.

She runs and grasps hold of Appa's hair, lacing her fingers through enough that it might hurt a little. She hopes not. She is just trying to hold on.

“Katara,” Sokka says, warning her not to let go, not to fall. She sees him try to move, but he is steadying Aang and Toph together, and she shoots an icy glare at him.

“No! I've... I've got it,” she breathes. When she thinks she actually does, she kicks off the ground and says, “Yip—” But the sound comes too late. A stone catches her in the side, in the soft hollow beneath her ribs. It is just a bruising force, but it takes the air from her and she can't finish the command. Appa is already disoriented, already afraid, and won't respond to anything but a full instruction.

“Let the Avatar go, and we will let you free,” comes the serpentine, slithering voice of one of the Dai Li agents who is in earshot.

Katara would rather die. She reaches up to her neck and grasps the vial, secure pressure all around it so it will not break as she hangs on with only one hand and uses the other to break the tie from the back of her neck. She concentrates on the water she has left that is not within the vial and creates a small, concentrated burst that lands right at the center of the pile of her brother, Toph, and Aang.

“Hey,” Sokka gasps, breathless and unable to stop himself from the shock of it, even if now is not the time to complain about a wet lap.

“Don't drop it. Healer. Water Tribe. Go,” she orders, breathing out her words because her side hurts even though she knows she could survive it. She could survive it if she weren't about to let go. Her eyes burn, but she releases her second hand's grip on Appa and instead pats his side. “Yip yip!” she orders, and Appa fans his tail and vaults into the sky before he could reason through that Katara is not coming.

“No. No, no, no, Katara!” Sokka orders, but he cannot sacrifice Aang or Toph, cannot sacrifice the only hope, the one thing Katara had charged him with, so he can do nothing but look into her eyes, grief and frustrated anger chilling his gaze. “Katara,” he says, hardly audibly on the wind, the last thing she hears from either one of them before Appa has lifted them out of the range of her hearing.

On the ground, turned to her side, pressed up against her arms, she can see Appa fly away. There is nothing these vile, traitorous earthbenders can do from down here. She looks at the circle of them that enclose upon her, like carrion birds, with defiance. Her eyes narrow, because no matter how much she can accept it as something she can do for the world, do for Aang, do for her family, she is not looking forward to a volley of small, strategically placed, fast, sharp stones slowly crushing her from the outside in. She closes her eyes, remembering the aftermath of seeing someone crushed before. The moment her eyes close – just a blink, she won't let them do this to her with her submission – she hears a familiar voice.

“Wait!” The voice is ragged from volume and seems uncertain in giving an order. The order is given nonetheless, and there is a shuffle and murmur of hesitation. Behind closed eyelids, Katara notices a little more ambient light around her and blinks her eyes open. The encircling Dai Li have created a path, and through the surprisingly small huddle of them, Zuko walks through to her. His eyes are focused, narrowed, and he examines her for a moment before he turns and passes that same intense gaze across the Dai Li. “She's of political value,” he announces to them in that same clueless but insistent, barking tone. He reaches down for her arm and before she can protest he hauls her to her feet. “She is a political prisoner of the Fire Nation. Anyone who harms her from this point forward will answer to me.”

* * *

“Oh, Zuzu, this is the first thing you do with your restored power?” his sister asks him. This is her first attempt at casual conversation after his initial moments of standing beside her, trying not to feel numb to his toes, trying not to feel feverish or sick. Trying not to feel guilt.

Zuko recalls that even in those early days, long before their mother had gone away, even in the best of times, Azula had never been one to let things rest. She had always challenged, always pushed. He breathes in, calling upon breath that feels so tight it is pushing tendrils between his vertebrae.

“And if it is?”

“Do you answer every question with a question?” Azula asks, sounding quite pleased with the answer all the same. The throne room is vast and empty except for the scattered agents of the Dai Li, faceless with their heads bowed and shadowed. Azula seems like the only other breathing person in the room. Out of the corner of his eye, realizing that he can look away from her without the assumption of lightning arcing through his body, he can almost settle into the thought – _his sister_. His sister, his father, and his home – all of them belonging to him again, when they haven't in years.

“Zuko,” Azula tuts, reminding him that it is not quite a thought that can belong to him. Not yet.

“You're doing the same thing,” he points out, pointedly making it a statement and not a question.

“And my position is more secure than yours, _brother_ ,” Azula says. She turns to him, pulling her knees up to her chest in her stolen costume. Zuko tries not to sharpen his gaze at her. Already, he can feel the sinking, uncertain feeling that the ground beneath his feet is not what it had seemed, that his life and breath are under his sister's mercy. He glances up and around at the high ceilings, uncoiling tension as well as he can, but he wonders if he is not a prisoner after all. “Oh, don't look so suspicious. You spent too long out on your own, a fugitive,” she says, as if she had not played a part in that. “I am concerned about you, Zuko.”

Zuko gives her the benefit of the doubt, or at least he wills himself to try, enough to meet her eyes. He wishes he could find some warmth there, but he finds that he doesn't even know what he's looking for.

“Why?” he asks, the word just grating out.

“Why is my position more secure than yours, or why am I concerned about you?” Azula asks, still very conversational and sweet from the coiled up position she has taken.

Zuko closes his eyes, refusing to see her. He looks out from the dais and focuses on nothing in particular, the dim light that barely illuminates the large, heavy doors.

“Why are you _concerned about me_?” he asks, playing right into her hand. What choice has he given himself? In a way, it feels like the freedom and honor she has promised he has regained are only their own kinds of chain. How could he have anticipated that?

“You just told me you felt as if _you_ had betrayed Uncle and not the other way around. And now I discover your insistence that the Water Tribe girl be kept safe, under _your_ protection. She is a master of their paltry, cold little art, you know. Unless you would like me to send Ty Lee in on the hour to make sure the girl never uses her arms or even her toes, I can't imagine how you intend to control her.”

“I have faced her and won,” Zuko answers simply. There are such few words he has for his sister's many, and he feels them dwindle even more beneath a tightness in his throat.

“Have you?” Azula asks, rhetorical and bored. She sighs and slides forward, placing her feet on the floor to prepare to stand. She does so and takes a few steps toward him on the dais, reaching out to touch his arm through the sleeve of the clothing she has given to him – better than the rags he had been wearing before. “I am only suggesting that you learn something about the art of motivation. If you want her to _stay_... well. I question your judgment, but I also ask you to consider: why do Ty Lee and Mai stay with me?” she asks, smooth as silk and dangerous as the edge of a blade.

“She is a prisoner that has political value. She is the daughter of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe,” Zuko insists.

“Is she,” Azula says, not a real question. She takes a step down from the dais to look up at him, but everything about her posture and tone says she has not _stepped down_ and is not beneath him at all. “Lying to yourself about your own desires – your thirst for power or whatever else you may want – is a good way to allow others to lie to you. And it's a good way to find that you believe them.”

“It just makes sense, Azula,” Zuko insists sharply.

“Whatever you say, brother,” Azula says, in a way that means something akin to the opposite. She reaches up and smooths down the sleeve she had gripped moments before. “Get a good night's rest, brother. Victory and honor await you tomorrow. That is, unless your _prisoner_ escapes and brings shame to your newly restored position...”

He takes the warning for what it is and doesn't answer.

* * *

Water is all around them. Wherever life exists, there has to be water – somewhere, within, whether it is reachable or not.

The Dai Li had seemed to fear Zuko's words enough to obey him. No more physical injury had come to her since he had led the procession from the roof and broken away from it. While he had gone further into the Earth King's stolen palace, she had been led along a path that nearly broke her heart – again – when they reached the end of it. For a moment, they stopped leading her into captivity. There were murmurs of alarm, and a cluster of men headed in front of her and they hoisted the bent, drawn remains of a metal door to clear it out of the path. Seeing it, something in her just _knew_.

Her brother had been here.

Toph had been here. Toph had...

Before her mind could fully form and accept the thought, the path was clear, and she had been led to a cell which had remained intact.

Inside, she is locked away, sealed, alone. When she sits down, she can feel the rush of stinging pin-pricks on the soles of tired feet, but any relief in this place feels like another source of torture. The first image that haunts her is the look in her brother's eyes when he had realized what she was about to do. The next is the realization of what Toph had done – could do – to the metal door of the neighboring cell. With it comes the realization that no one is coming for her. And last, most horrible of all, the image, the feeling, the weight of Aang's body presses against her side and right into the knotted muscle of her heart. Aang is dead. What does it matter if her feet hurt? What does it matter if this cell is shelter, rather than death itself? If Aang is already dead, maybe she'd be better off. Maybe...

Her thoughts begin to spiral like that, picking up speed and intensity and ebbing away in little bursts of slower, steadier breath. She draws her feet in, her knees, and curls herself into a ball inside the cool, blank, empty cell. She bows her head and her hair spills over her shoulders and down her back and sides. There is too much of it – everywhere. She starts to wonder exactly where the center of the room is, and those thoughts – they don't stop. They never stop. If she sobs, they don't budge from pressing an unbearable weight on her chest. Silence doesn't help either.

Footsteps approach, but she ignores them. She has no reason to pay any attention. The guards – Dai Li or otherwise – have not said a word yet when they pass her by. Good riddance.

“Katara?” a voice asks outside the metal door, through the barred gap.

Katara curls in tighter on herself and refuses to look at him. She knows his voice, and it removes all temptation, all curiosity. Why should she try that again? All it had done was burn her, and worse, burn someone she loved.

It had killed him, and letting herself believe otherwise was a dangerous, childish hope here, on her own.

“Go away,” she orders, defiant and muffled at once.

“I don't have to take orders from you,” Zuko says, petulantly. Katara doesn't have time. She stays where she is. She hugs her knees just a little tighter. Her hair itches against the side of her neck, but she does't move to scratch it. He is waiting there. His footsteps have not retreated. “Katara,” he tries again.

She still doesn't answer him.

“Katara, I am here to inform you of your status as a political prisoner of the Fire Nation. No harm will come to you here, by my order and because of your strategic value as the daughter of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe whose forces still have not been subdued by Fire Lord Ozai's navy.”

Katara starts to straighten a little. Her eyes are narrowed and hungry, like a hungry prey animal who might rip Zuko to pieces if only she could slide between the bars. How dare he? How dare he – they, all of them – take _everything_ and then use her to take _even more_?

“You have no idea who I am,” she informs him with squinted, faintly swollen eyes. Now that she has looked at him, she will not let herself be the first to look away.

“I know who you are,” Zuko echoes the contrary to her.

“Yeah? And what does it matter? Aren't you just going through the _formalities_ now, anyway?”

She needs to stop. She has said too much already.

“... No,” Zuko says, and he sounds a little strangely uncertain, shaky, but apparently he is a better liar than she had given him credit for in the past.

“Just go away, Zuko,” Katara says wearily, his name the opposite of respect, the opposite of his title. If he hadn't already, _Zuko_ now represents everything about _the enemy_ that she hates. She had nearly believed him, and this is her fault.

“I came to offer you release,” he says.

Katara tries not to perk up. Katara tries not to panic. She tries not to think how this might be a euphemism for an execution that will somehow be used to hurt her father, to hurt Sokka, to hurt anyone and everyone who might still care.

“No thanks,” she says, as disinterested as she can be.

“My sister doesn't know you—”

“You _don't—_ ”

“—I do. I've had to. You have been the Avatar's companion and protector all this time.”

“Don't you dare speak about him! Not ever,” Katara says, rising to her feet with a renewed burning own her legs that almost makes her feel alive. Maybe this is what she's supposed to feel, the stinging, hollow insistence that she go down fighting, even if it is all there is left.

“... I have come to offer you release into the palace if you agree to be guarded by those loyal to the Fire Nation,” he says, reciting something he had prepared beforehand, pressing on.

“Zuko, let me stop you right there. I'd rather die,” Katara says, each word punctuated with a bite that she hopes he cannot avoid, cannot ignore. She reaches up, pressing herself and her words against, through the little window of bars for good measure.

Zuko isn't looking at her. He is looking down and off to the side, anywhere but directly at her. He shrugs, also a rehearsed movement.

“If my sister comes to offer you an alternative, I do not believe she will be as merciful... for... harboring an... an enemy of the Fire Nation.”

Katara can hear his hesitation, but she does not know what it means.

No, she does. She knows it means _nothing_. She knows it is another ploy. She knows that every second she believes him means another person dead, drops of that blood on her hands.

“I would rather die,” Katara tells him, punctuating each word with malice.

“You could still do a lot of good for your people, if nothing else. Your family. The family you have left. Your father,” Zuko offers, quickly, speaking so fast that she picks out the words only out of indignation. “Your presence here or in the Fire Nation might lead him to a surrender with a general who might negotiate for your release and his life. Either way, think about my offer.” He pauses, just for a moment long enough to make anyone consider the fact that the emotion in his voice might be sincerity. Then, erasing the very doubts about him in her mind, he adds: “Trying to leave will only get you killed.”

“You might as well just kill me, because the second you open those doors I will _drown_ you. No, I'll wait! I'll do it with the sweat from my body, any water you bring me, _tears_. There is water everywhere, even inside _you_. I will turn it against you and tear open your lungs!” Katara threatens, furious with nowhere for it to go.

She should have been there. She doesn't know if they held onto the water. She doesn't know if it will work.

All she knows is that Aang was warm, clammy, cooling, dead – in her arms.

“Think about what I said,” Zuko says, voice becoming pressed in his throat as he leaves the block of cells. “Please,” he adds, tersely. He is probably mocking her, but it is a fantastic performance just the same.

* * *

Ty Lee stretches out and extends tendons and fingers and wriggles her toes. She relaxes in time and repeats the process until she hears movement at the door.

“Azula,” she says, not considering any option but to stand when the princess – her friend – comes into the room. She glances over at Mai and realizes that Mai has just barely perked up from where she had been sitting, brooding, but that was just like her.

“I see you are feeling better,” Azula says, a little edge of danger in her voice. Ty Lee lowers her chin, trying to remember what she might have done wrong.

“Come on, you didn't want the bear. The Earth King being out of the way just makes things cleaner,” Mai says, unimpressed.

Ty Lee taps one fingertip into another one, a little nervous, as she folds her hands together in front of her body, near her chin and mouth, and then lets them fall free.

“Oh,” she breathes softly, her step graceful but not feeling quite so light when she realizes what must have been the problem.

“I cannot have those I trust showing incompetence,” Azula snaps, but then she passes Ty Lee without incidence and finds a soft cushion that smells of clean bamboo filling to recline on. She looks down at her sharp, carefully maintained and shined fingernails. Ty Lee wonders what, exactly, she is thinking. Hoping not to attract any attention she does not want from Azula but not too little attention either, she approaches her and sits down just beyond her feet. “After all, what do we have Zuko for?” Azula murmurs, when there is someone obviously paying attention.

“Zuko?” Ty Lee asks.

“It is to him that we owe this day,” Azula says, punctuating each word with a strange tilt on her tongue, hard to hear, hard to define, and hard to ignore.

“Really?” Mai asks, her interest inclining just enough to make her open her eyes a little wider, her eyebrows lift a little. Ty Lee thinks that her aura might have even turned a little brighter than dreary, bloody mauve or to the whiter side of a vaporous gray – Mai is hard to read, sometimes.

“I wouldn't get my hopes up,” Azula says, straight to a point that she sees without any further questioning.

“I didn't—” Mai says, only to be interrupted.

“Of course you didn't. But I know you did, too. We haven't changed that much, and we used to tell each other _everything_.”

Mai is even cooler and dimmer than before when she shrugs with one shoulder. She hugs her knees where she sits.

“I didn't say anything. I asked a question.”

“That does constitute saying something in most cities, but perhaps Ba Sing Se is an exception,” Azula says. She continues without a pause for comment. “It is to my brother's indecision and desire for approval from our father and, really, from me that we owe his turning on my fool Uncle and the Avatar and his friends. And... it is because of him that I have been able to make sure the Avatar is dead.”

Ty Lee feels her face fall, her stomach lurch, and her heart beat out of rhythm. She does not know why. She has chosen a side, but hearing the phrase _'the Avatar is dead,'_ must surely give anyone something like... pause. Hesitation. Fear.

“Wh-What Azula?” she asks, chuckling just a little to try and make the air itself lighter.

“The Avatar is dead and the Earth Kingdom has fallen. To me. I think this is reason enough for a celebration. The people ought to know whom they now serve. After all, that privilege has been denied to them for quite some time, hasn't it?”Azula asks. At first, Ty Lee believes it is rhetorical, but then she realizes that she is speaking to one of the guards who had followed her into the chamber – a member of the Dai Li.

Ty Lee swallows whatever it is she is feeling that makes her question if the ground beneath her is really as solid as Earth Kingdom construction would make it seem. Her hand tests it, but she ignores her misgivings.

“Y-Yes, Azula! We should celebrate,” she agrees happily, empty of any real suggestion about how.

“Great. We did exactly what we came here to do. How exciting,” Mai intones after her. Ty Lee wants to turn around, to quiet her, but she doesn't bring more attention to what sounds more and more like resistance. Why couldn't they just celebrate and be happy? This was what the Fire Nation had been trying to accomplish for a hundred years.

“Don't be _quite_ so depressed. I'm sure when we have settled this victory once and for all your father will be able to produce at least a dozen handsome, attractive noblemen for your to peruse,” Azula replied in the flat tone she used when she was not quite being open about how amused she was by another's discomfort, watching them try and work out their next move in a losing game. “Guard, send for a feast. The majority of it should be brought to this chamber, but send some to my brother and to his... guest, too.” Then, uncharacteristically, she adds something quickly: “Whatever is left after the feast is prepared can be made into a meal for you and the others who are in the palace, but no one is to leave tonight.”

“Yes, Princess,” a man whose name Ty Lee doesn't know says before he disappears.

Azula must be in a good mood. Ty Lee slides closer when the guard has gone to follow his orders. She glances back and forth between Azula and Mai and clears her throat softly.

“Sorry... what are you talking about?”

“I wouldn't mind knowing either,” Mai agrees.

“Oh, it's very little in the grand scheme of things. My brother decided that his first act as restored-prince – still wearing his rags,”Azula added, as if that part were quite funny, “would be to save the waterbender girl who traveled with the Avatar from torture or execution.”

“Oh,” Ty Lee says, brightly, but for a moment it is all she can say. “Well, that's... nice,” she says, checking Mai's eyes for anything she can reliably trust for what this means to Azula.

“Yeah, it's fine. I don't see what the big deal is,” Mai replies, and Ty Lee gets the sense that it is for her.

“I'm just sorry for your disappointment. You did wait rather patiently and loyally to weigh your odds,” Azula says.

“Azula,” Ty Lee says, singsong in each syllable, coaxing and pleading. “What are you talking about?” she complains in the same way.

“It is simple. My brother decided to place that much importance on the head of a prisoner, an enemy – a common – if powerful, for their crude art – Water Tribe girl – for what reason? There are very few that stand to reason and only one that comes to mind. It might be useful, really. Something to keep him busy. A different occupation for his frustrations, if you will.”

“Azula,” Mai snaps.

“I cannot tell you it isn't true. But who knows? I might be wrong.”

“I don't care if you are,” Mai snips. Ty Lee is nervous that it might get worse, but about that time a servant comes into the room with a tray containing warm, fresh tea and little cakes – some sweet, some savory – to begin their feast.

Relief sweeps over Ty Lee as Azula takes interest in it and Mai follows her example. Ty Lee takes one of the sweet cakes and dips it into her cup of tea. She nibbles at it. When Azula picks up the conversation again with slightly more mundane things – aspects of the city that might be tactical advantages or weaknesses, the weather here, the taste of the food and whether or not it deserves praise or punishment, and so on, Ty Lee finally manages to form a question she wants to ask.

About halfway through the entree, she casually segues into the topic.

“The Water Tribe girl – where is she?” she asks Azula with wide, innocent eyes.

“She is in a holding cell, unless my brother convinced her otherwise.”

“Convinced her?” Mai scoffs, or chokes – she isn't sure which.

“She is a political prisoner or one of strategic value, my brother thinks. Or claims. It's fairly convenient and not that complicated,” Azula sighs, bored. She takes her time to take another mouthful of food, politely chew it, and swallow it. “If he can convince her of his own delusion, she might try to play Pai Sho with herself. Otherwise, it is no different than any other prisoner.”

The difference in comfortable conversation and tense near-argument is almost indistinguishable around Azula. If one is ever tempted it argue with her, passionately, about anything, it might result in a misunderstanding of one's loyalties or intentions toward her cause and loyalty to the Fire Nation itself. This much became obvious during the first few days Ty Lee had spent with Azula. Mai handles it differently, but they both handle it, and before their feast is concluded and they are laughing softly from time to time.

At one point, Mai leans close to her ears and whispers to her.

“The wine helps.”

Fires burn low and while Azula could easily stoke them again without moving much at all, she seems content to let her eyelids grow heavy. Ty Lee is beside her when they are nearly asleep, but Ty Lee is not quite able to imagine going to sleep until she satisfies her own curiosity.

“Azula,” she whispers.

“What is it?” Azula asks, hand twitching, her fingernails glinting in the low, dull-orange light.

“Can I see her?”

“Who?”

“The waterbender. The Water Tribe girl,” she says.

“Oh,” Azula says. She is disgusted but relaxed just the same. “If you wish to take a walk to the holding cells, be my guest. … See that you don't stay gone too long,” she says, opening her eyes just long enough for Ty Lee to see their molten intensity covered in the warm haze of encroaching sleep.

Ty Lee does not hesitate. Before Azula changes her mind or becomes distracted with some other purpose, she gets up and quietly takes a lantern down the dark corridors of the Earth King's palace at night. She works her way down into its depths, below-ground, until the air itself seems to try and rob the fire of some of its remaining breath.

“Halt,” a guard orders, telling her she has neared the right place. “Stand down. Who are you?” the Dai Li agent asks.

“My name is Ty Lee. I am the daughter of a Fire Nation nobleman, quite skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and a trusted companion of Princess Azula. I wish to see the prisoner,” she says, polite and sweet but without room for argument.

The Dai Li agent looks to his companion and the two men talk it over before nodding.

“Any attempt to free the prisoner will be met with your own arrest,” the other warns her.

“Fine, fine,” she says, brushing them off with a gesture of her hand. “I just want to see her.”

On her tip-toes, Ty Lee peers into the cell and sees the Water Tribe girl's beautiful, dark, wavy hair spill over her shoulders and down her back. She watches as her shoulders hitch occasionally, as if soft sobs are an afterthought and a habit by now.

“... Hello?” Ty Lee works up the volume to ask.

“If you're here to make sure I can't bend, I can assure you there's not enough water in this cell to make something large enough to gouge out your eye,” the girl replies, bitterly.

“Oh my,” Ty Lee replies, widening her eyes and then relaxing her expression as she thinks better of it. “I haven't come to do anything to you. In fact, I'm not allowed in your cell. I just... wanted to know why you're still in this cell, if what Azula said was... accurate,” she says. She can't say _'if what Azula said was 'true,''_ – it would be treasonous, even if only she ever knew it.

“And _what_ did the Fire Princess say?” the Water Tribe girl asks with bitter, biting emphasis.

“She said that Zuko might come to let you out. That he thought you were...” Ty Lee tries to think of the most polite way to say it. “That you might be politically worthy of being a princess.”

“I am,” the waterbender girl replies. “By your people's power-hungry and -obsessed standards,” she says. “But my people don't work like that. We work together, for the common good of our community – and the _world_ , if—” But then the girl stops herself.

“... What's your name? Cat-something?” Ty Lee asks, hopefully.

“Katara. Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, daughter of Kya and Hakoda, Chief of the Southern Water Tribe,” Katara recites, proud and bitter and angry – so, so angry. Ty Lee doesn't know enough to begin to understand it.

Ty Lee stretches and sways a little for a moment, still peering into the cell. It's a little awkward, but she's already here so she has to say something.

“Well, Katara,” she says, “I just wanted to come and see what you were like. The thing is... I think even Azula sees whatever it is Zuko sees in you. She... She also told me that the Avatar was dead,” she says.

Katara sits up and turns finally, glaring at Ty Lee through watery, tearful eyes and the barred gap.

“... She said he was,” Ty Lee breathes, not knowing whether or not she's apologizing. “That's all I know, but I guess I just think that if... you... are what you say you are that if you're in this situation now, you might as well make the best of it.”

“Thank you for sharing that plucky insight,” Katara says, biting, her gaze unwavering and icy.

“Did the guards bring you something to eat? Azula said we'd share our feast with you, so did they...”

A flicker of understanding passes through Katara's vision, but she doesn't stop looking cold or angry.

“I wasn't hungry,” she says.

“Oh,” Ty Lee says. “Well, as long as they offered. Listen, I know that Azula is hard sometimes, but she—”

“Stop,” Katara cautions her. “Stop, or I don't know what exactly I'm going to try, but I don't think it's going to be very good... for _either_ of us.”

Ty Lee takes a deep breath in. She knows what the girl is capable of with waterbending and that water is, technically, everywhere. She exhales and shakes her head, momentarily closing her eyes. She grasps the bars and pulls herself as close as she can, speaking as quietly as she can.

“... I only know what Azula told me of what happened tonight. If she is right and the Avatar is... is gone, I... I know I'm not supposed to feel it, but I can't help but think that the Avatar being gone is... _wrong_. If—If he is, though, he'll be born again! And either way... either way, if you're a princess, you have power here. Just... use it... for whatever you think is right.”

“Is what you're doing what you think is right?” Katara growls at her, but she is listening, arms folded in their own makeshift bars across her chest.

“I... I am doing the best I can with where destiny has places me,” Ty Lee replies with a small smile and a loosening of her grip.

“That's nice,” Katara says, meaning anything but. “... If I do what you ask, you and I are still going to be enemies. I understand that you might be trying to be nice for now, but I will _never_ ally myself with the Fire Nation and its... empire of destruction. You should... probably go.”

“... Right,” Ty Lee says. “Okay. I'll... see you around, maybe.”

She is already walking back quickly if Katara offers any quiet response.

* * *

Several days have passed, and the Earth Kingdom citizens are sufficiently informed, reverent, and fearful. They are dividing themselves among the criminals and rebels, the ambitious and the political, and the cowering, ordinary people who could only bow down to whomever happened to seize power. It is an interesting show, but any impact it will have is slow-going after the first shock of change.

Azula is pleased enough that Zuko has not tried to take any of her deserved recognition. He seems to understand that, regardless of which of them is firstborn, she is the one with the stomach to rule. If it remains that way, she can almost see herself developing a kind of less hesitant, more honest affection for her brother. She really thinks she can. Whether it is a genuine feeling or a whim, it is enough to provide an evening's entertainment.

She goes to the bedchamber her brother has occupied. He has made his appearances, particularly when she summons him to stand at her side for some official purpose or when they have gathered in the palace's dining hall to eat. Other than that, he keeps to himself. He broods quite a bit, and it is unbecoming, but with the other benefits he has provided to her recently, it is forgivable.

Upon entering the bedchamber, she finds that Zuko is settled in front of an altar, breathing in a dim light that occasionally flares with the exhale of his breath. She waits for a particularly high flame, her brother almost empty of breath, before she speaks.

“Good evening, Zuko.”

He flinches and she laughs heartily from her throat. She comes to his side and drops down to sit beside him. They are both of royal blood, and he is her brother. There is no shame in it, and no one there to see if he makes a fool of himself.

“Azula,” Zuko says, acknowledgment and greeting and dumb statement of fact in one.

“I see you are carrying on with some of Uncle's practices,” she says, nodding toward the altar.

“These are common practices among firebenders,” Zuko replies.

“Oh, but who taught you them? After all, you were not in the Fire Nation to be taught _everything_ you know. In fact, wasn't it very little?” Azula asks, question following in a light, conversational tone.

“What do you want, Azula?” he snaps.

“Is that any way to talk to your beloved sister who rescued you from squalor, disgrace, and dishonor that may have lasted the rest of your short life?” she retorts.

He seems to see things her way when he takes another breath that is simple enough not to affect the flames beyond them. They flicker on their own and illuminate the dark scar tissue that makes up one side of his face.

“I came to see how you are doing, brother,” Azula says when he seems to have surrendered to the conversation.

“I'm fine,” he says, voice grating over a lighter, airier tone that doesn't fit him at all. How boring.

“'Fine,' is a liar's answer,” Azula says.

“I'm not lying to you about anything. Don't you think you'd know it if I were?” Zuko says with a meaningful glance that she knows refers to the guard, to the Dai Li, to all those loyal to her.

“Fair enough. Sometimes, I forget that you are quite a bit smarter than you look, Zuzu,” Azula answers him, a smile tugging at her lips. It drops away quite quickly when she thinks of the easiest, fastest shortcut to a topic that might offer some entertainment. “Have you been to see your prisoner recently?”

“... Katara is not _my_ prsioner,” Zuko says.

“But of course she is. You gave the order. It is under your mercy and discretion that she lives and lives in such comfortable conditions...” Azula says, reaching out and tracing a fingertip along the near corner of the altar which is now at Zuko's side.

“She is worth something to them. It might bring about an end to the fighting without more bloodshed,” Zuko snaps.

Azula frowns. She waits with that expression on her face, then she breaks out into a free laugh that is not contained by throat or mouth or even by the room itself.

“Bloodshed? What bloodshed? What drops of watery blood could possibly make a difference in the _oceans_ of blood which have flowed for the past hundred years? Even if you are too soft-hearted for rule, surely you aren't stupid.”

Zuko scowls at her.

“There is nothing to be done for the dead,” he says, more roughly.

“I suppose, but if you want to be a healer, I'm afraid you were born into the wrong bloodline,” Azula says, the brilliant pieces and moves falling out before her from her tongue before she even puts them all together. She widens her eyes and then blinks with realization as she looks at her brother's sad-rimmed gold. “Ooh, but perhaps that is why she is so fascinating to you. I've heard she can heal. Too bad she never will heal her prince. Oh, excuse me, her Avatar.”

“What are you trying to do?” Zuko asks, actually managing to sound unimpressed.

“Oh, I'm just thinking out loud. By the way, you never answered my question.”

“Which question?” Zuko sighs.

“About whether or not you had been to see Katara lately?”

“I have looked in on her. I have checked on her welfare. I have offered her guarded freedom, and she has refused,” Zuko recites, sounding promisingly disappointed.

Azula knows what she needs to do then and climbs to her feet. Before she gets up, she reaches out and touches the unscarred side of Zuko's face. She would never be able to stand her palm pressing against the ugly, too-smooth, occasionally ridged scar tissue. It does not even look like human skin to her. He has grown into quite a handsome young man on the other side, though, as they go. Serviceable enough, at least. Her thumb brushes his cheekbone and then she lets him go.

“Don't worry, brother,” she soothes him as her hand drops away. “I will make sure that you are... happy. Very happy.”

“I don't _need_ you to give me happiness,” Zuko says.

“No?” Azula asks, as she moves to leave him in his bedchamber. “Then you should at least be brave enough to show that you know how a prince conducts himself in matters of war.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Zuko says.

“She's quite pretty, and Ty Lee tells me she's a _princess_ among those primitive, frozen tribesmen. It is only a thought,” Azula says. Then, she does leave him, going with a purpose to the guards that stand just before the path that will lead to the cells. There is no reason that she should pass in front of them when she can just give the order. After they have bowed and now await their instructions, she speaks, arms folded across her chest. It is a little unpleasantly cool in this Earth Kingdom cellar – palace or no palace. “Bring her to me.”

Katara thrashes a little when the guards bring her out, but she is weak and a little gray around her eyes. She has refused much of the food offered to her, and that which she does eat seems to have done her little good, alone in the dark. She has been given water, but only in very small portions at a time. The girl must need to drink it, rather than use it to harm the guards who are taking such good care of her. Azula knows that the one thing they have in common is that this temptation must be made an impossible one.

“It won't do you any good,” she says, stating the obvious just to see the girl glare at her. At least it gets her a look that meets her eyes. “Good,” she says, praising the behavior that she knows she will get. “Now, I have come here for one very simple reason. You are making my brother work much too hard. I understand that you are quite upset over that little boy's death, but it was an unavoidable sacrifice to my—to _my father's_ cause. Our family's great cause.”

“You're a murderer, and even if... even _if_ you win—” Katara spits out, “you will _never_ rule over a peaceful empire. This war will never be over.”

“Oh, but you might want it to,” Azula replies. “Right? If that little Avatar creature is reborn, it's _the Water Tribe's_ turn, isn't it? Oh, what an honor. Perhaps it could be your child.”

Katara looks at her, cold and angry and baffled.

Azula chuckles.

“Let her go,” she says. The guards look at each other, but at the softest clearing of her throat they obey and release each of Katara's arms. They seem to wilt down to her sides before Katara makes little fists. “And do you want the new little Avatar to have to lead a war straight from the nursemaid?” She pouts her lips a little.

“I don't know what game you're playing, _Azula_ ,” Katara says, using the name as if it were a curse, bare of any title or respect. Azula understands it, and it grates on her, but she still has the upper hand. Killing Katara now wouldn't be any fun and might be counterproductive.

“Oh, the only games I play I _always_ win. Zuko is upstairs. Or you can stay down here and freeze. A prison bed does not befit a _princess_ , even if frozen filth counts as a bed where you come from.”

She watches Katara's eyes dart, her fingers flex.

“Careful now,” Azula chimes in. “You may be free, but your bending can be taken from you, trapped inside – again and again – quite easily. But you knew that.”

* * *

Zuko does not know why he is so angry when he learns what his sister has done. His sister – _his sister_ – has let Katara go. Only, it isn't apparently to undermine him. She has not let her leave Ba Sing Se or even the palace. In fact, she has only enforced what Zuko himself had requested and offered several times before giving up.

Maybe that's it. Maybe he is just frustrated that he had not thought to simply insist for himself in the way that she had. He has often been angry with Azula when she has, in the end, been right.

That explanation still does not sit well with him.

The guilt that crops up into his thoughts – Katara, his uncle – had become so tangled together that he wonders if it is simply feeling off-balance. He had not tried to offer his uncle any such chance or freedom. Now that he knows Katara is free, he wonders if that might have been the wiser expenditure of his time. Only, he knows that Azula would never allow that.

It wouldn't fit into her plan.

Her plan.

Perhaps that is why he is angry. Azula always has plans. Those plans almost always involve other people doing exactly as she directs them to. She must have a plan for him, a plan for Katara. A plan – but what is it?

The first night she is free from her cell, Katara is reported to have slept curled tightly by the fire that burns in a hall where the Earth King had once received his few guests the Dai Li had allowed him to filter through to watch tricks performed by his bear. She does not take a meal that night, and she never evades the guards' sight.

The next day, Zuko goes to find her. He comes into the large hall, making his way halfway across before she glares at him for all the paces he has left. He lifts his hands to show that he means no harm, but they are benders so lifted hands mean little at all. He drops his hands before he reaches her, his walk casual, tired even.

“Katara,” he says.

“Don't talk to me like you know me,” she says. “I know the nice-guy/bad-girl routine you and your sister are trying to play – poorly – and it's not going to work on me.”

Zuko frowns and blinks at her. When he comes to a few arms' length away from her, he glances down at the plush rug beneath his feet and decides to kneel down and to sit there. He waits, not offering to come any closer to her.

“Honestly,” he says softly, glancing over his shoulder at the Dai Li agents. They perk up in jerky unison, but then he shakes his head, indicating that he has no orders or intentions for them. The delay makes him feel a little more comfortable that they are not quite as crafty as his sister on their own, without a leader to tell them what to do. “I don't know why my sister did what she did. I'm not... unhappy she did it, but I would never have thought of forcing you into... this. Freedom.” The last word comes out almost dryly, and he shakes his head, cursing himself inside for making a joke when the only person he had known to make him laugh in years, his Uncle Iroh, is nowhere to hear it.

“This is _not_ freedom,” Katara scoffs.

“It is the best we can do.”

“No it isn't.”

“What do you mean?” Zuko asks, lifting his eyes, surprised that she has answers prepared so quickly. He thinks it shouldn't be any wonder, though. She has been on her own for days with nothing at all to do but think.

“You could kill me. Let me _go_ that way,” Katara replies bitterly.

“Do... Do you want to die?” Zuko asks, faltering on the words. It seems like a reasonable question to ask, given the way she seems to speak of it so carelessly.

“I think there's a part of me that already is,” Katara says. Then, when she has his complete, undivided fascination and attention, she finishes. “The part of me that might have believed that any one of you with enough intelligence to make plans would make them for any reason but the furtherance of this stupid, cruel, murderous campaign to make sure that there is nothing _good_ left in the world.”

Each word presses at something in his chest from different angles, so much that it makes it hard to breathe. He almost wonders if the airbender hadn't taught her some of his own ways somehow. Her words are placed with such harsh precision that it is hard to believe that he is not being physically attacked somehow, hard not to look for a way to fight back. But they are only words, and he only listens.

“That... is not who I am,” he says.

“Oh really? Then prove it,” Katara says. “But oh wait, you can't. You stood there and did _nothing_ while they _killed him_. And you _had_ your chance to end this war the peaceful way. So if you've got some kind of _plan_ for me about how I'm going to be used against my father and any of the others who are left to fight any of the rest of your soldiers? Then you really, really might as well kill me.”

“I don't have a plan for you,” Zuko confesses, his voice held low and soft.

He sees that she actually hears him because something flickers, changes in her eyes. She blinks as if something has just blinded her for a moment, but then the moment is gone and she has gone cold, heart-hardened again.

“... There aren't any plans. There's no... trap... beyond the obvious one,” he says. The fact that he is admitting that this palace itself is now the world's greatest trap and fortress, if it hadn't been proven so already, sends a sick thrill through him that makes his stomach turn for a moment with some terrible variant of excitement. He breathes and the feeling ebbs away. “You weren't going to make it, and I couldn't watch you die.”

Katara forces a hiss of a chuckle through her nostrils that might as well have been the growl of one of the huge, feral predators who live in her homeland, roaming the ice for anything with hot blood to keep them living and fed another day.

“Why not?” she asks simply with that warning rumble in her throat.

Zuko takes a few long, silent seconds. He closes his eyes, as vulnerable as he can be in the face of what he can see is very real grief and fury. He considers his breath and his own mind. He lets himself wonder, lets himself examine, and when he opens his eyes the most obvious, best guess he can come up with spills from his lips.

“Maybe because I had already watched the Avatar fall,” he says. Then his eyes go wide and he looks at her as if she _is_ a feral predator and that she has him cornered, a fatal gash already administered, slowly tearing open.

Katara, on the other hand, looks softer than she did before, shocked into something resembling the girl he had seen for those few moments in the catacombs. There, he had almost believed in her cause, in her faith, in her promise that she could _heal him_. Not just his scar but everything he had done in chasing the Avatar, everything he had struggled with in fever, hunger, and the filth of homeless, fugitive destitution. He finds himself swallowing tightly because he had so, so much wanted to give her a different answer, but then he had seen the Avatar – seen Aang's eyes. The mistrust, the anger, and the possessive little warning in them.

The promise she had given wasn't his to take, in Aang's opinion. Aang would never trust him. Aang had believed, without giving Katara a moment to explain, that his very presence there must be a trap. But she had believed that, too. If only there were more time. If only he had... but the Avatar was... gone now. He had seen Aang fall.

“You had both your hands in that as clearly as anything I have _ever_ seen. I gave you a chance. I trusted you, and you broke it. His blood is on your hands, as much as your sister's. Even if I wanted to, I can't _ever_ forgive you,” Katara says, no longer quite so cold but every bit as angry. She stares at him, her eyes reddening in their bright white, ready to water and spill. She has reached her knees and clutches her dress with both hands until her deep skin turns a shade of hollow white right at her knuckles. “Do you understand that? He was waiting for a _hundred_ years, and he was almost _ready_ to end this war, and now there's no hope. No hope at all unless—”

Zuko does not know if it is fear that he feels or the most painful hope he has ever known. His heart races, and he considers what she might be saying. He considers what it might mean if she is right at all. Then, he realizes through a heartbeat pounding in his ears that she had stopped right before the thing that he needed most to hear. He has to know, one way or the other.

“Unless?” he prompts her softly, hardly above a hoarse whisper. He has started to clutch at his robes, too, mirroring her body before he realizes it.

Katara blinks and her eyebrows knit tighter at him. Her eyes are rimmed with red, the liquid blood and liquid tears in her body showing themselves to be yet another part of her power. He does not know why it suddenly seems that there is so much more to that than the breath in his own body that is his root to the power he had been born with.

“Unless they find a healer with the power and knowledge to make the water from the North Pole give the Avatar back to us. To the world. If Aang returns for a second time, he will stop at nothing to make sure this war ends and that the Fire Nation is defeated. I know it,” Katara confesses, seeming strategic with every breath and utterance. With each word, she seems a little more relaxed, a little more free. She seems to have poured the tension from her own body into his without ever moving, without ever touching him. If the Avatar lives, he has a debt too great to repay. If the Avatar lives, it will be because he forfeited his chance to be free of his scars forever.

* * *

After Katara speaks the words out loud, she starts to believe in them. Her belief isn't without doubt. She knows that without a waterbender during those first few moments that it might have quickly become too late if it weren't too late already. She knows that she may find that whatever is left of the Avatar is not Aang anymore, that Aang has gone into the Spirit World forever and that the Avatar will now be born into the Water Tribes somewhere. If the Avatar is reborn in this way, it will be years and years before they know if they have a fighting chance again. That is, unless those of the Water Tribes are as thoroughly exterminated as the Air Nomads had been a century ago. Her hope, her faith that maybe, somewhere, Aang is alive, are not without doubt, fear, and honesty, but she realizes that day that she must have hope if she is to survive.

She does not know why she had told Zuko or why it took talking to him to say it out loud. There isn't any harm done, though. He had already known about the vial of healing water around her neck, and sometimes she is simply glad that it is not here with her for him to demand the use of anytime he likes, whether or not it is hope or one single, spiteful act of revenge.

Whatever the reason is, it seems to have had some impact on Zuko. He seems less hollow and unreadable when she watches him. She feels as if she knows him now, whether she likes it or not. She sees the unspent energy running up and down his spine, everywhere he goes. He walks with a purpose but speaks without one. He does not know what to do. He is afraid, and he shows every measurable drop of his remorse and his guilt.

Even if she sees it, she does not know how to forgive him. Not yet. There is only one way to know if she will ever forgive him, but if he understands his guilt in all of this, perhaps he will surrender if Aang ever comes back. If he rights himself in the course of this war, it will surprise her, but she starts to think she might have seen more surprising things.

It is not peace that she feels but an insistent kind of purpose in _waiting_ now.

The next time she is invited, she joins Zuko, Azula, and her friends, Mai and Ty Lee, in the dining hall. She sits at the table at Zuko's right hand, where she has been placed, directly across from the girl named Mai. She meets her eyes, equal parts cool and curious.

“Decided to join the living, huh?” Mai asks her when she catches her eyes.

“I can't say I've ever thought of it that way,” Katara replies as she prepares her plate, last – careful and _polite_ but barely worried about poison.

“She's a lot more fun than she sounds like at first,” Ty Lee says about Mai, fond and cheerful as she tilts her head toward her. She sees the most relieved of them all to find that Katara has joined them at their table. Their stolen table.

“I'm sure I don't understand Fire Nation senses of humor,” Katara replies as she takes a bite of something that is well-prepared, warm, and that tastes good enough to make her feel a weight of guilt for even being alive. She doesn't compliment them, though. Their servants made the food.

“Then perhaps you could share with us a Water Tribe joke,” Azula suggests as she takes a deep drink from her cup. “Although I'm not sure we would have the necessary background to... understand.”

“Azula, stop that,” Zuko insists. The hot glower in her gaze catches Katara's eyes as well.

“Most of our jokes are about waterbending, and I don't want to test your skills at the dinner table,” Katara replied dryly. The humor is without any _real_ humor, but the ability to hold her chin up makes her feel a little stronger with every moment.

What she notices as the conversation stops, then gradually continues with Ty Lee's gentle, bright insistence is that each of them has their own way of guarding against Azula. All of them are careful with their words, thinking them through, routing them around Azula. She see it, feel it the way she feels the water in each of the drinking glasses around them, whether it is in its natural form, whether it is wine, and whether it is tea. She also notices how Azula, here with these people she has surrounded herself with, she does nothing to guard herself in return.

It doesn't matter if she thinks Katara is primitive and lesser. It won't matter either way. Either way, she can see Azula sewing the seeds of her own defeat. She can see that Azula is blind to the way the snares she places around the only people she might think herself to love entangle her, too.

After dinner, Katara excuses herself quickly. Whatever social impulses she have are not to spend more time than she has to looking into the eyes of the person who killed Aang – whether it lasts or not. Anything she needs to know, needs to see, she can only do so much of it at a time.

Before she can get back to the place she had slept the night before with the single pelt she had located for warmth, Azula follows after her. She is quick on her feet but confident, never running, never rising to her toes. Her presence is heavier than she could ever be.

“Katara,” she says, a harsh call that doesn't fit her name. Katara finds herself surprised that she knows it at all, wishing she didn't.

“What?” Katara answers, not giving her any response with her own name. She hates the way it feels in her mouth, even if she can see with every breath, every movement, every syllable that there is something wrong with her very presence – something wrong _with her_.

“Where do you plan to sleep tonight?” she asks, as casually as she seems to know how.

“... I'll find a bed,” Katara says, when she realizes what is being suggested. She swallows a shiver of something she quickly identifies of revulsion, but she doesn't show it to Azula. She simply removes herself and moves in the right direction.

That vital tension runs through Zuko – like lightning, Katara thinks, any hint of amusement snatched away entirely and replaced with an uneasy sick feeling in her stomach – when she lets herself into his bedchamber. It is dark except for the bright, flickering flames arranged on an altar that he stands up before.

“Katara,” he says, helplessly. She doesn't even think he meant to say it.

“Relax, Zuko. Your sister sent me in here,” Katara says, voice grating as she is struggling not to feel her mouth flood with nauseated saliva. She can't stop thinking about _lightning_ for a moment. She finds the nearest firm surface – the elaborate frame of Zuko's large, regal bed. This was probably a long-unusued guest chamber for the Earth King. Zuko is still far away from her, and she's glad that he doesn't do anything to change that.

“She did,” he says, not a question. He makes a face. He looks at her, a quick, awkward up and down glance. He looks away and reaches up to the back of his head, hand grasping down his own neck.

“And you said there weren't plans,” she says. She perches on the edge of the bed, her entire body feeling coiled and rigid like wrought metal.

“I said I didn't have any,” Zuko answers.

“So here we are... without a plan,” Katara says, observing without thinking about it much more deeply. For this moment, she can't afford to, or she will show the things in her mind that aren't going to ever go away.

“'We'?” Zuko echoes after a few, long moments of silence. He moves toward the bed, but not toward her. Instead, he sits down on the opposite side of the bed, his back turned toward her. She feels the transfer of movement across to her, faint and rigid, too.

“I know you have regrets. I do, too. But I can't forget that you could have stopped her – with us – so easily. Now... now _us_ is just me... here... with her. The fact that you're here is almost an accident, isn't it?”

“Almost, but I can't really... claim that, either,” Zuko says, his voice muffled by the fact that they are turned away from each other. “I saw his eyes – the Avatar's. When my uncle and he came to find us, I could see in his eyes that he would... never trust me.”

“You hunted him for months. Like prey. He tried to befriend you, and you made it very clear that you had no interest,” Katara lists off. For a moment, she doesn't feel that he's gone. She feels as if she could walk into the next room, mediate between them, and fix this so easily.

“I wanted my honor back. I wanted my home back. Then, I realized I couldn't have either one. What I could have was... wide open, except for those things. Then... Azula. Well, Azula lies.”

“So you know that?” Katara asks, finding it hard to swallow or speak because if he _knew_ that, why would he do this to them?

“I know, but I've listened to her lies most of my life.”

* * *

Sokka keeps vigil near him a lot, when the healer isn't with him. It doesn't do a lot of good, and honestly, Toph is better equipped. She can feel his heartbeat without touching him. Sometimes, Sokka just asks her rather than reaching for his wrist. Even when he sees him breathing, labored or even, he is afraid that he's going to reach out and not find a pulse.

One day, he comes into the room and settles down beside Toph, letting her keep a barrier between him and Aang's unconscious form.

“How's he doing?” he asks.

“The same as the last time you asked,” Toph snaps.

“... The same?” Sokka presses.

“I think he's getting better, but it didn't happen since the last time you were in here. He's also still not dead,” Toph reports, just a little more kindly. She waits for a moment. Sokka doesn't say anything, so apparently she feels the need to chime in. “How are things out there?”

“Oh you know, the same.”

Toph elbows him roughly.

“Ow,” he remarks, a word more than an actual response. He glances over at Aang. His bare chest rises and falls like he is in a deep, sound, but perfectly normal sleep. He'd almost believe it, too, except he's starting to forget what his eyes look like. He'd mention it to Toph, but it'd probably be one of those things that would be rude. At least he catches it this time.

“I'm scared,” Toph remarks. “Being in here, alone with him. I'm scared. What happens if he slips away and I feel it? What happens if he wakes up and starts asking questions?”

“Either way, it wouldn't be your fault,” Sokka assures her. Then, he stops. “Wait a second. That's not what you're asking, is it?”

“I want to know if I can handle it. I don't know if I've got the guts,” she says.

“I don't think anyone does. If they do, they're probably evil or insane,” he says.

“What are you gonna tell him?” Toph asks.

“Was that an insult?” Sokka asks her, but he presses on before she can answer. “I don't know. I don't know what to tell myself most days.”

“Are you gonna guess?”

Sokka is silent beside Toph for a while. For a while, he watches Aang breathe. Then, he gets up and puts his hand on the kid's abdomen, just feeling it for a little while, reassuring himself of his pulse and breath directly. He is trying to be brave.

“The thing that scares me most is that the first thing he's going to do when he wakes up is ask for my sister. And I don't know what I'm gonna say.”

“You don't?” Toph asks, genuinely surprised, her voice pitching up a notch.

“I know there's not _enough_ I can say. I know there's also way too much to say to him unless I want to stop his heart first thing,” Sokka says.

More silence passes until the sound of a loud wave crashing against the side of the ship makes Sokka think of water again, which makes him think of Katara, which presses him into saying something.

“I—”

Apparently, it had given Toph the same idea, too.

“You can practice on me,” she says at the same time, talking over him.

He presses his lips together, thinking, then he decides to do it.

“Well, thank you, that's what I was getting ready to do,” he says, trying for light but not managing it. Suddenly, there's a lump in his throat and rage in his veins that he spends all day, most days, running from. “I'd tell him that the Fire Nation has Katara but that we have to be smart in how we go after her. And I'd tell him that if they have harmed a hair on her head, one of her toenails, that I am ready to kill them all. All he needs to do is point and aim. He can fly me at them. I'll do whatever I have to do. She's my sister.”

Toph makes a sound almost immediately, a contemplative, very loud hum. She doesn't say anything for a bit, then all at once she says it so loud it echoes through the metallic room.

“She's your sister, and she can sling ice around,” Toph remarks. “You're both pretty tough, and Katara isn't going to let anyone keep her from getting back to you. And Twinkle Toes over there.”

“You think?” Sokka asks, chuckling, or trying to.

“And if she can't get out, we're gonna go get her. Aang is _alive_ , and he's going to get better. I know it,” she says. “We're going to go get her and kick all their butts. We'll wipe the evil smiles off all their ugly faces,” she says, offering.

“... You think they're ugly?”

“Obviously, I don't know. What do you think?” Toph asks, trying to distract him. He decides to let it happen.

“Well...” Whether or not the people from the Fire Nation he's met are _ugly_ isn't important, but the things that are important are already in motion, and he can't make them happen any faster. Talking about this is better than feeling helpless.

* * *

The time that passes in Ba Sing Se goes slowly. Days and weeks have very little definition, and there are days when he aches to see the sunlight but cannot bear to go outside. Outside, there are paths he had walked with his uncle. He knows that he cannot see his uncle, while he knows he is being kept alive. Outside, there are the memories of just running a tea shop and leaving all of this behind. Outside, the city is a place that had once meant something else, before he had come into this palace.

If he goes outside, he knows he might never want to come back in.

Just like that, the palace at Ba Sing Se becomes like a prison. Azula calls Katara his prisoner, but he comes to see her as his cellmate. She sleeps at the far side of his bed. In the darkness, they talk to each other sometimes. Sometimes, they cannot bear to speak. Whatever happens, neither of them can leave. He looks forward to being alone with her. At least there, he doesn't have to pretend that this isn't a large, beautiful – hideous – cage.

Then, one morning, before dawn, Azula calls him out of the bedchamber, two guards flanking her.

“What?” he hisses, blearily, at the door. She tries to peer into the darkness beyond him, but he sways slightly, some of it genuine, the rest of it protective.

“I came to tell you that we will be returning to the Fire Nation the morning after the new moon,” Azula says. “That gives you a few days to prepare yourself and... her, if she has anything she needs to prepare.”

The meaning of when Azula plans to travel is not lost on him. If anything, the only surprise is that she seems to be humble enough to know that there is a time when traveling with Katara would be the least dangerous for them – firebenders with a captive waterbender.

“Leaving?” he asks.

“Oh, had you decided you would like to make the Earth Kingdom your permanent home after all? I'm sure we might be able to speak with Father about making you an ambassador if you concede the much more suitable position of Fire Lord to me,” Azula says, sweetly, the closest to happy and kind she has been in days.

“I'm going back to sleep,” Zuko announces.

“Sharing the good news,” Azula says hums. “Very well.”

Without another word, he closes the door in front of her. He walks back to his side of the bed and flops down onto his back. He is a little less careful than he was the first time, not to cross the precise boundary of the middle of the bed. He doesn't touch her, but he hears her breathe an audible sigh.

“The Fire Nation,” she grumbles, voice a growl rather than filled with dread.

“It was to be expected,” Zuko says. It isn't a joke, but it's the closest thing he can manage to one.

“What do we do?” she asks.

“You're leaving that to me?”

“I'm asking your opinion,” Katara replies. “I'll decide if I want to follow your suggestion or not.”

“Spoken like a princess,” he says.

Katara almost laughs, but she shakes her head. He feels her movement but doesn't respond to it.

“I still can't,” she tells him.

“I know.”

“No, let me say it,” she insists. “I still can't just forgive you. I can't... trust you. I can't... I won't... give up. I won't be able to believe you until I... until I know.”

“I know that,” Zuko says. “I promise, I know. I also... promise that when we get to the Fire Nation it will be as it is here. I'll... protect you with whatever protection I have. And I'll... listen to you. And we'll wait. Then, I'll find out.”

“Find out?” Katara asks, knowing but insistent, wanting to be sure. His eyes just barely track as she leans up on her elbow, turning toward him.

“I'll do whatever I have to... to find out if the Avatar is alive.”

“If Aang is alive, he's going to kill you,” Katara says. Strangely, there is a kind of fervor and near-happiness in her voice when she mentions him, even when he knows how much she must be unsure, must doubt. He can't quite tell if she means it as a euphemism or a threat. Either way, he can't bring himself to mind.

“It would be a worthy death,” he drones out, an honest answer either way.

 


End file.
